And yet I still have to regard the mere facts of the matter he presents as just as uncanny and meaningful as I first found them to be. Ground Zero really is where George Washington's inauguration was consecrated by prayer by the first members of the US Government. Whether America is to be regarded as consecrated to God in the sense ancient Israel was is questionable, but Cahn's point that some form of consecration took place seems undeniable, and MUST explain why God treats us the same as He did Israel, which is clearly what is happening with the Isaiah 9:10 connections. Cahn mentions both the plaque at Jamestown and the dedication of Washington's presidency at Ground Zero as two instances in which the nation was consecrated to God. It's hard to dismiss this as a meaningless coincidence.
Isaiah 9:10 certainly does refer to the felling of sycamore trees as God's judgment on Israel, and to the planting of cedar trees or conifers as Israel's defiance of God in response. How can we possibly overlook the uncanny symbolism of a single sycamore tree in the churchyard of that same historic church being destroyed by part of a falling WTC tower and replaced by -- a conifer? And there's also the replacement of the fallen bricks with the hewn stone echoing Isaiah 9:10 as well. That too is uncanny. In doing these things America has certainly had the same attitude as ancient Israel as recorded in Isaiah 9:10 -- we'll redo and rebuild what God destroyed, and we'll do it bigger and better and stronger. The sycamore itself is now memorialized in a bronze replica of its roots, which I find spooky in the extreme, like celebrating death, in this case the death of America, what else? Unwittingly of course. And it's right beside that historic church in which our first government was consecrated.
But most uncanny of all is the attitude of American leaders who exactly echoed the spirit of the leaders of ancient Israel in their denial that this was God's judgment and their refusal to repent but instead to rebuild in their own strength what God had destroyed. There is no way to deny that parallel, there's no way to deny that this follows the same lines as Isaiah 9:10. Of course it wasn't a President who quoted Isaiah 9:10, it was merely the Majority Leader of the Senate, Tom Daschle at the time, but that IS a leader of the nation and it has to mean something. The fact that John Edwards quoted the same verse a few years later in a prayer breakfast on the anniversary of 9/11 isn't quite so telling, because he wasn't in a high position of leadership, but it certainly does at least reflect the attitude of defiance America as a whole was taking at the time, strangely unaware of its actual meaning, thinking to be speaking words of comfort about 9/11 instead. And he made that speech at a typical government prayer breakfast, an official appealing to God for the nation. Again, all this was unwitting, they all think they are comforting the nation with promises to rebuild.
But here is how that passage continues:
11 Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together; 12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still. Isa 9:13 For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts. 14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.Sure sounds to me like God is promising more judgment to come BECAUSE Israel didn't repent but vowed to plant better trees and build better buildings.
Some of us didn't need all these signs and symbols to know that 9/11 was God's judgment on America, or warning judgment. All you need to know is how God dealt with nations in the OT and specifically how He dealt with Israel. He TOLD them -- Deuteronomy 28 for instance -- how he would deal with them if they obeyed and if they disobeyed. Disobedience calls for the triumph of enemies and the destruction of the economy for instance -- surely this is a principle that applies to all nations, not just God's own people, although in lesser degree simply because "to whom much is given much is required." Those principles are all we should need to know to understand 9/11 as God's judgment -- a warning judgement of more to come, I should say, simply because it was such a limited event compared to what it could have been. A warning judgment to wake us up and lead us to repentance. But Americans refused to see that in it, and the biggest shame of all is that the pastors of churches all over the land refused to see it that way. Thousands of churches could have been fasting and praying for repentance in earnest except for that.
So a few years later along comes Jonathan Cahn who discovers these uncanny correspondences between a little-known verse in the Old Testament and the events and attitudes in America surrounding 9/11. This has to be God's mercy, giving us some indisputable signs to prove that He's bringing judgment against America even in the teeth of the nation's determined denial and defiance. NOW, I think to myself, how can anyone avoid the fact that America is under God's judgment? This revelation, I think to myself, ought to speed through the churches and send us all to our knees. But no, it hardly gets off the ground.
And now it turns out to be presented in some questionable forms with a questionable tone itself, and we still have no problem avoiding the truth of the situation. How much this hype has to do with our avoiding it I don't know, I just know the whole thing is incredibly sad, we are under God's judgment and we have plenty of reason to know we are under God's judgment and we are doing nothing about it.
I wish I hadn't ordered the book because I can't afford much these days and I don't need a novel. I'd like to have all the material he offers in support of this prophetic vision but the money is too much for me. And now I'm really angry that he has been treating this material this way, hyping it up as a novel, using all the spooky hokey hypy words that should not be used in reference to Biblical revelation.
Even with all that, as I said, I still believe this message is authentic at its core. The parallels with Isaiah 9:10 can't be denied. This is a strange case of amazing TRUTH being manhandled by the techniques that belong to lies. I don't know how to put all this together.
I've been disappointed in Christians' response to this. And I still am, but this problem with how the main protagonist has been treating the material does give some excuse to the churches for ignoring it. SOME excuse, though, that's all. I still think the facts themselves ought to have overridden such a reaction to the hype, if that is part of the reason it's been ignored.
So here we are, looking at a major warning of God's judgment in the events of 9/11, given to us in unmistakable signs, being ignored by God's people instead of taken to heart as it should be, as we are the only hope for the nation to escape future escalation of God's judgment, which is inevitable if we do nothing, and we ARE doing nothing. Going-on-eleven years after the event we are doing nothing despite this revelation that ought to have set a fire under us long ago.
Our state of paralysis is itself a form of judgment.
Will the next hit, whatever it is, wake us up? Probably not. We've had a few hits since 9/11 in fact, not just the Wall Street hits but some pretty heavy weather hits across the nation as well. That's certainly what Katrina was. Anybody moved to repentance? Naa, just the usual complaints against anyone who suggests it was God's judgment.
